


Lazarus

by TrulyCertain



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 08:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrulyCertain/pseuds/TrulyCertain
Summary: He should have checked for a pulse.





	Lazarus

He was surprised that Sarif had such an ordinary bodyguard. For a man so in love with augmentations and defence contracts, Sarif had chosen some straggler from the police. SWAT, yes, but no mercenary or soldier. The files on the averted plant raids and security training had given him pause, certainly, but he was prepared.

Then he met Adam Jensen in person and he was... underwhelming. Well-trained, but not well-trained enough. There was a moment of worry, but he overpowered him easily. Watched him gutted and choking on blood, pitiful, and gave him a quick death, in the end. A problem solved.

Perhaps it was Reed's screams that distracted him from checking for a pulse. Or the fact he was focused on extraction. He should have been more professional.

He found her crying, weeks later, in the room they'd given to her. The best room, the best food... She was still crying. He understood, grief was a powerful thing, but it was... wearing. And one day she'd said it. "You don't know what you destroyed! Not just Adam, he was...  _he was Patient X."_  And he'd cursed. A waste. At least she'd harvested enough samples for her research to be replicated.

That file was closed, now. No-one was about to find Sarif's scientists.

They find the first Belltower man in a dim corner of one of their facilities. He’s unconscious. Stunned with his own weapon, as if taken by surprise. The guard surfaces babbling about an augmented mercenary, one of the most advanced he's ever seen, who lunged out of the shadows and had a hand round his throat without even showing up on the radar.  _Like a bat out of Hell. Not one of you guys. Looked like... black steel, I don't even know..._

They run a thorough search of the area, of every camera and sensor system, and find nothing. Belltower men joke about one of their own sleeping on the job, or about a heart condition, but they're nervous and sweating. 

And then they run through the computer systems. All dragged for information. Terabytes of data sent out of a backdoor, and no-one noticed. Cowardly, but thorough.

He knows.

Black steel indeed. The man that emerges from the shadows is a different one. Perhaps better. He's been rebuilt almost as extensively as Jaron himself.  _Inhuman,_  some would call it. Probably a blessing from Sarif. The boy's shiny enough. But he's still smaller, not as well-trained. Weak. It's easy enough to send Barrett to deal with him.

When he receives the news of Barrett's death, he pauses. He tells himself Barrett had been tiring for some time, that there had to be a reason. A mis-manouevre, Barrett overestimating his own abilities. Jensen is just an inconvenience, a fly in the ointment. And a simple fly is nothing to fear.

Months later, when he looks up, past the knee on his windpipe and the gun at his head, he realises that none of his people have been alerted. Everyone assumed he would win, easily. He looks into augmented, impassive eyeshields, and knows he made a mistake.

He should have checked for a pulse.

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: "rising from the dead."


End file.
